Japanese
Episode AG 176:"Haruka vs.
Musashi! The Final Contest!!"American
Episode 446:"Going
For Choke!"Japanese
Air Date: May 4th, 2006 American
Air Date: November 30th, 2006Important Places:
Sekiei Kougen (Indigo Plateau)

The second round of
the Kajinoki Pokemon Contest is underway! As Musashi and Haruka
push through to the final round, Satoshi and his friends are trapped by
Kojirou and Nyasu. As Satoshi and his friends try to figure out a
way to escape the prison they've been placed in, Shuu and his Flygon
arrives on the scene to rescue them! Later, Satoshi and the
others catch up to Kojirou and Nyasu, who have rejoined with Harley to
sabotage the final battle between Musashi and Haruka. However,
since Satoshi, Shuu, and the others arrive on the scene, Harley loses
interest in fixing the Contest and decides to rely on the strength of
his pokemon instead. The battle between Harley's Jupetta (under
Musashi's command) and Haruka's Zenigame begins with neither side
really dominating the battle. Jupetta continues to fire attack
after attack, but Haruka's turtle pokemon is able to dodge a lot of
them and fire back with some counterattacks of its own. The
five-minute time limit runs out, and both sides have the same
score! Marion announces that the battle will turn into a sudden
death match with no time limit, telling each Coordinator to battle with
all their might. After a few blows back and forth, Musashi loses
all her points, resulting in a victory for Haruka! After Haruka
receives the Kajinoki ribbon, she learns that the Kanto Grand Festival
will be held at the Sekiei Plateau in one month. Determined
to face off against Shuu and to get back at Harley for his trickery,
Haruka gets pumped up for the upcoming competition.

I'm tired of complaining about Haruka and her Battle Frontier Contest
arc, and I'm sure you guys are tired of reading my complaints.
So, let's focus on other parts of the episode!

I guess my big non-Contest related comment would be a question about
the part where Satoshi and
his friends escape from the pitfall that Kojirou and Nyasu dug.
After they escape, they meet Harley, Kojirou, and Nyasu under the stage
and banter back and forth for a bit. My question is...how did
Satoshi-tachi even know that
they were there in the first place? Are they just good at
guessing? And for that matter....how did they get access to
underneath the stage in the first place? Most productions I've
been to that have involved a stage don't allow people to walk around
freely under the stage (or, in the case of the last episode, the stage
rafters). So how did they get back there? Is the security
at the Pokemon Contests really that
lax?

The dubbed version keeps six pieces of Japanese music. That's
double the amount they kept in the last episode. And you know
how, in the previous episode, PUSA played the Pokemon Contest theme, a
song that's never been played in the dub before even though it's been
used in the Japanese version for years?
Well, this episode gives us another one - this time, it's the music
played when Banette's using Frustration. It's a piece that's been
used several times in the Japanese version (most notably in the Burshamo vs. Lizardon fight in
the Jouto League) but has never
been heard in the dub.
Yet here it is! Even though PUSA isn't that much better than
4Kids when it comes to replacing music, they at least surprise us every
now and then by using a rare piece that we don't hear all that often.

Yorunozuku and Foretos keep their Japanese voices.

Dialogue
EditThroughout this episode, Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu all
refer to Harley as simply "sensei" since they see him as being their
mentor. The dub could have very easily translated this as
"teacher," but they apparently decided against it and just had everyone
call the character by his name instead.

Another dialogue change occurs after Satoshi and his friends have
fallen into the Rocket-Dan's pitfall:

Meowth:
"Y'know, Harley sure knows his stuff! You make a trap, then you
back it up with another trap."James: "Perhaps we should
approach that green genius about joining Team Rocket's ranks.
[changes pose] Think of it. Our own special ops anti-blast
off officer."Meowth: "Yeah! Sounds
real modern!"

As I mentioned above, Nyasu and the others simply refer to Harley as
"sensei," so he doesn't say the mentor's name in his dialogue.
The slip-up originally occurs during Kojirou's line. After the
part where he changes his pose, Kojirou does an imitation of Harley and
uses the Coordinator's name (since Harley, in the Japanese version,
often refers to himself in the third person). After that, Satoshi
are able to figure out that Harley and the Rocket-Dan are working
together.

Kojirou doing an impersonation of Harley is quite a funny thing to see,
and I have no idea why PUSA would miss up on some easy comedy by
rewriting the scene the way they did.Added Footage--3 seconds
Three seconds are added to that TO BE CONTINUED... screen that we all
love so much.